A Stand for Justice and Liberty
by Col.Foley
Summary: Commander Shepard, hero of humanity, Spectre, stands on the precipice.  This is the end of her struggle against the Reapers.  But will she forge her own destiny or blindly submit?  *Spoilers for ME 3*


**AC/N: Well this is it, my own nerd rage ending bit explaining how my Shep would've dealt with…well the endings. How I think she would've. After all I kept things pretty much the same. Took some artistic license with some of it but I wanted to make this cannon. Asking the very obvious question. What about your peace treaty? **

**I own nothing. **

**And My Fem Shep face code for anyone who is curious: .UFC..471.5EB.1D7.C46.G8H.2B3.132 **

**And if you don't cry you don't have a soul! Well I think anyways. **

Shepard had made her choice. She was limping to the light in front of her, the platform jutting off sharply into the power stream of the Crucible. It was blinding, causing her to lift up her arm and squint at it. She had made her choice; she was going to join her energies to the Crucible's. Use her pattern, part synthetic, and part organic, to create a new life form. A new pattern based on hers. Synthetic and organic, which would end the cycle once and for all.

She was prepared to do this. This was the best option available. If it could permanently end the cycle, and allow life to continue in some form, then what other choice did she have? She was standing on the precipice, could feel the heat burning her face even at this distance, stinging it slightly.

This really was the best option; she wanted to plunge off the edge and got ready to fling herself into the beam.

_Why?_ A small voice in her head said.

_Why what? _She challenged it pausing.

_Why is this the best option? _

_Why not?_

_Not good enough and you know it Abigail. _

_What else is there the Reapers are winning they are about to take over the Earth…again…and kill all of us…we have to act. _

_Why? Don't let this Catalyst make up your mind for you._

"I-" She grunted her knees beginning to shake, her arms dropping to her side in spite of the scorching blindness in front of her.

She yelped suddenly grabbing her head as it began to pulsate on her; she collapsed in front of the beam onto her knees, suddenly feeling as though she wasn't in control of her mental faculties.

_Not much time left_ she thought to herself mustering her strength preparing to make the leap again.

_No! Abby not like this! THINK! _The voice raged at her again shaking her to her core.

_You have no choice Abigail Shepard; you have to do this, to break the cycle of extinction and rebirth, only you hold the answer before you. A woman who is synthetic and organic. _

She paused as the new voice rattled around in her head, a voice that didn't sound like her own, she backed up from the beam tripping over her own feet and falling onto the smooth almost glass like material below her. She gasped for breath as her chest restricted slightly, she didn't know if this was her own fight or flight response or some external control, but she was suddenly terrified.

"You have no choice Commander Shepard. You have to pick one or the other. If you want to end the cycles and save your species from extinction, use the Crucible and take control, forge a new race, or destroy us. But there is no guarantee that more Synthetics won't rise one day to take the place of the Geth and wipe out _all_ Organics."

"But why? Why do I have only these three choices?" She grunted, turning on her hands and knees and facing the Catalyst on all fours.

"You have no choice." The Catalyst persisted.

"But why-"She choked off.

"You will do as you are told!" The previously white and formless child grew before her turning red and angry, flames licked off it as it flew over to Shepard in a blink, towering over her.

Its presence caused her to scream, a shriek slamming into the walls around her to careen down them and echo in the hollow space. She felt like her mind was being ripped apart, her eyes watered. She moaned as she wanted to give in, it would've been so much easier to give in. To just throw her life, her worthless husk of a body into the fire consuming her body once and for all.

The Catalyst smirked at her as she picked herself up almost against her will again and turned to face the energy vortex. Putting one halting step forward, facing the beam again. She almost pitched herself over, could feel her legs tense up to spring, she teetered on the edge.

"NO!" She screamed tearing herself away from the beams vortices, collapsing again, shaking on the ground. "I will NOT comply."

"There is no other way Organics and Synthetics will always go to war."

"I have proven you wrong!" She hissed again on her hands and knees pitching her up. "The Geth have proven you wrong, the Quarians are proving you wrong! They are living together in peace and trying to rebuild after what they have done to each other!"

"They will fail, the created will always rebel." The Catalyst intoned.

"You don't know that! Don't we deserve the right to try! If it lasts only a minute or a year it would've been worth it! You don't have the right to dictate our destines! Who are you to play God? You don't even have a beard!" She spat the last deliriously, it seemed something was having an effect on her mind still; she shook it and growled at the Catalyst.

"And you don't know that they won't. This is the only way to ensure that organics can continue to live." The Catalyst continued stepping up to her again, almost coming up to her chest now.

"Don't you dare!" She howled and charged, she flew through the VI's midriff and it dissolved into thin air.

She landed in a heap in the middle of the platform and grunted. Her head still buzzed, her sides were still splitting open, and she could feel the life force pore out of her with a vengeance.

She grunted and began to walk…limp…the way she came.

A console resolved itself before her turning out of the middle of the platform towards the junction of the three choices.

She winced and began to limp over it. Her wound started to ache again sending ripples of pain down her body. She headed on over making the best speed possible but each step sent a jarring bit of pain arching through her body, to where she almost couldn't bear to walk. Making little progress, the fleets continuing to rage over head firing at each other and ripping each other apart.

She made it though; she slumped on the console using it to support her weight and stared at the controls for a second. That second stretched on to where she lost track of time, easily because of the shivers of pain still rolling through her.

The symbols on the screen were incomprehensible. Green triangles chasing red squares faster and faster, sometimes lines stretched out between one or the other causing the 'target' to disappear.

She crinkled her brow and nearly lost her balance, _man am I so tired, I just want to go to sleep, why can't I go to sleep?_

She did a mental slap in the face and concentrated on the task before her, convinced that this was the last step, that finally this was a way of fine tuning the Crucible's energy to _only_ target the Reapers.

She looked down at the controls below her, GUI interface, and her vision blurred. She couldn't see the symbols; they looked like a series of squares and triangles revolving around themselves slowly, twisting. A few controls and energy indicators slowly glowed.

"I don't know what to do." She whispered. "I don't know what to do, my God; I don't know what to do. There is nothing I can do, this is it." She moaned.

She collapsed onto the panel holding her fist below it slowly, grinding it against her scalp. She whimpered and sniffed, before a single tear rolled down her cheek. More followed slowly but they were gathering steam.

She lost her balance and fell to her knees, now just hanging up and her head was just above the control panel, right at eye level. She wept; her body shook with her quiet sobs as she tried not to wail at her situation.

Her eyes dropped as her head sagged onto her chest, her legs gave out and she collapsed on the cool floor of the 'Catalyst room'. She wanted to will herself, stay awake, stay conscience! But she was losing the fight, she reached down and felt her side, it stung, and came up with even more blood. It seemed that whatever the Catalyst had done to keep her in one piece it undid as soon as it could.

She could still end it, could still go back to the Crucible beam and cast herself into the vortex. Her head pounded in pain as she felt herself sprawling for the energy vortex, her bloodied hands reaching out to physically drag her own body.

_No, fat chance, not going to do that_. She smirked to herself; she didn't really have the will power to do anything anymore. Just sit there and die. She began to lay on the cool floor of the Citadel.

_Well I tried my best_; she smiled contently but with the slight ghost of a tear still on her cheek.

"You really care don't you?" A voice spoke to her, "you really care so much about this universe that you would be willing to throw your life away for it? For the Geth? We offer you a solution to ending the cycle once and for all but you cling to the hope that your species will get it right, that your races will put it right and that you really can live in peace."

Her head snapped around and she saw the Catalyst peering at her, his face pulled into a frown, but his eyes twinkling at her, staring, considering.

"Go to hell." She gasped out and then coughed.

The Catalyst _smirked_ at her, a wry, lopsided look, Shepard couldn't decide if he was amused or just taken aback.

"No, I mean it honestly. We have underestimated you Abigail Shepard. You are truly more evolved then we gave you credit for. You resisted our attempts to control you, and you resist the choices we offer. You honestly believe that the Geth and organics can live in harmony."

"That's what I've been trying to say." She coughed, blood trickled down her chin, dark blood.

"We may've underestimated you, after nearly a billion years of waiting we are surprised that this moment is finally here. Someone believes, someone has resisted us, someone has looked at our options, our test and said _no_, putting their _faith_ in the people's that she just united…the Krogan…the Geth…instead of the promise of ending the cycle once and for all. That you can truly live in peace without destruction, without control, and without our synthesis."

"You were testing me?" She glared blearily.

The Catalyst nodded, "We were. We determined that the only way to determine if Organics could be ready for this moment would be trying to bend them to our will, to make them chose in three impossible options. You are not the first but you've been the most…successful."

"What does this mean?" She croaked, wanting to yell but her throat felt parched as death.

"It means that organics might be ready for our stewardship to end. For our harvest to expire."

"Oh is that all?" She asked sarcastically laughing, but only succeeding in making her sides feel as though they wanted to split open, she curled into an instinctive ball.

The Catalyst nodded and looked at the sky.

She followed his gaze just in time to see a badly damaged Geth Dreadnaught was hit with a full blast from a Reaper particle beam, cutting it down the middle, explosions rocking through the decks tearing the ship apart.

"We will now prepare the Crucible, but it needs a tuning fork, you will be the key Commander Shepard, your will can direct the beam and destroy the Reapers, our time has ended."

"Like hell," She spat, a defiant glob of blood, "there is no way I am stepping a foot in there!"

The Catalyst started its eyes widening, "Oh I see…" he nodded. "Yes, how foolish of me I haven't exactly engendered your trust." He smiled at her sheepishly looking every bit the kid that the VI had chosen to portray itself as.

"Very well. We will leave set a course for the sun, destroying ourselves." He turned to go as if that were the final matter

She reached out for his ghostly legs for one second, an absurd thought occurring to her, her head rocked as it felt as though it were going to come apart at the seams and deposit her brains all over the floor.

"Wait," She said through gritted teeth. "Isn't there another way? If this were all some mistake and _if_ these are the remnants of a mighty civilization isn't there some way to preserve them? Just send them to dark space, live out the rest of your lives?"

The Catalyst turned to her again his jaw slack, "Noble Shepard!" It chuckled. "I am afraid it doesn't work like that, part of the organic mass of the Galaxy, the 'left overs' we use as fuel, to maintain our processes in dark space and our energy for the next cycle. But without this we don't have enough energy, we will die."

"Oh." She slumped.

It smiled at her again, a wan smile, forlorn. "Thank you Shepard."

With that it vanished, right before her eyes.

She rolled her eyes skyward and looked at the view. The space battle still raged and for a second she thought the Catalyst played one last game with her.

But then she saw it, only the Allied fleet was firing on the Reapers, the Reapers weren't. They were lazily gathering into formation and as a unit flying in another direction, away from the battle. The fleet fired on the retreating forms, but halfheartedly, not endeavoring to pursue their query.

Shepard smiled, a wave of contentment rolled through her, slowly purging her of her pain. She felt her body purging itself, feeling light and airy. The smile formed into a toothy grin.

_Well you did it_, she congratulated herself. She could die now. The Reapers were going, the Galaxy was safe, and she united them.

_It's such a beautiful sight_, she stared at her home. Earth, where she had grown and where she had learned life's most basic lessons, in the tenth street reds, so long ago. She had somehow escaped that life, a miracle from God or fate, she wasn't sure. She just started to _believe_ in those things, now more so than ever before.

_I'm Proud of you…my child….you did it_. Anderson's voice echoed through her head.

_Thank you sir._

She'd done it; against all odds she had united the Galaxy. If this was her end, it was a good end, knowing she didn't have to struggle anymore, didn't have to fight, staring at her home.

She could just go, begin her next adventure.

"It's been an honor" She whispered. "Joker, Liara, Ashley…James…hope to see you soon."

Her head lolled over to the side and her eyes closed, she felt even more at peace alone with her memories and with her success, losing all track of her body and the constraints of time.

She didn't know how much time had passed but she heard it, a low electronic rumbling, her mind fired _engines_

She heard a whoosh of air and a score of pounding footsteps, felt a presence crash in above her.

"Over here!" She heard Garrus's voice drift at her…Garrus who she last saw charging the beam with her.

"Hang on Lola! Don't you dare leave me! We won DAMNIT this can't be the end, not now, live damn you!" The voice of James Vega yelled at her, from very far away.

"Hang on, get the shuttle, we need a gurney stat and a crash cart." Hackett's voice echoed down to her.

"Skipper!" Ashley yelped nervously.

"Oh Keelah." Tali'zorah supplanted barely audible to Shepard's ears.

"Huh." She muttered, but wasn't sure she was able to vocalize it.

She opened her eyes and was blinded, a light slammed into her causing her eyes to water.

She felt herself being lifted weightlessly, almost beyond perception, but her mind realized that she was feeling it…wasn't she supposed to be weightless going to heaven?

She slammed down onto a bed, soft sheets, and could just feel the echo of something piercing her arm.

She moaned as it hurt, but something flooded into her, she was suddenly aware of _everything_ and it hurt, it overloaded her, her perceptions screamed, but it was life.

She gasped, and fell unconscious again.


End file.
